Using Oxford’s Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) to Assess the Strategy Use of a Group of First and Third Year EFL Algerian University Students

The present study aims at investigating the patterns of language learning strategy use employed by two groups of students enrolled in a three-year English degree course in the department of English of the University of Algiers 2, each one including 56 learners among first and third-year students. To reach this objective, Oxford’s Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) (1990) along with a background questionnaire (a modified version of Oxford’s background questionnaire) administered to first-year and third-year students. The findings indicate that participants from both years use language learning strategies, but with differences in type and frequency. Third-year students reported a high frequent use of metacognitive strategies, whereas first-year students reported a high use of compensation strategies. The results also indicate that female subjects’ strategy use was higher than that of male subjects in all the types and categories of the Strategy Inventory of Language Learning. Based on the findings of the present study, some pedagogical implication were suggested to encourage students to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses in skills and content courses and self-regulate learning so as to make progress with teachers’ assistance